SIMD-0437 Step 2 Goes Live on Solana Mainnet: Rent Drops to 5,080 Lamports Per Byte

Step 2 of SIMD-0437 activated on Solana SOL$106.60+3.9% mainnet-beta at epoch 1033 on September 11, 2026, dropping the lamports_per_byte rent constant from 6,333 to 5,080. With Step 2 in place, cumulative rent has now fallen 27% below the protocol's original value of 6,960 lamports per byte.

Anza confirmed the activation at 21:09 UTC, pointing account holders to an official guide on reclaiming excess SOL freed by the lower minimum. The live post quoted Anza's own pre-announcement from earlier that day, which had set the activation time and epoch.

Lamports Per Byte Falls to 5,080 at Epoch 1033

SIMD-0437 defines a five-step path to cut Solana's lamports_per_byte constant by 90%, from 6,960 down to 696. Each step requires its own feature gate and a risk review of on-chain state growth before the next gate opens. Step 1 went live on September 3, cutting the constant from 6,960 to 6,333, a 9% reduction from the baseline. Step 2 brings it to 5,080, reaching a combined 27% below the original rate.

By the time all five steps complete, a standard SPL token account will require approximately $0.016 in rent rather than the $0.159 required before any reduction, according to Solana's official upgrade page.

612,000 SOL Reclaimable as Accounts Overshoot the New Minimum

Each reduction creates a class of overfunded accounts: wallets and programs whose rent reserves were sized for the higher constant and now hold more lamports than the new minimum requires. The 612,000 SOL released by Step 2 is worth approximately $62.5M, and across all five steps up to 3.06M SOL is expected to be reclaimable in total, according to Solana Foundation data on the official upgrade page.

Reclaiming is not automatic. Account holders who want to recover excess lamports must close or adjust affected accounts through tools that support the WithdrawExcessLamports mechanism. Anza linked an official how-to guide alongside its Step 2 announcement.

Three Gates Remain Before SIMD-0437 Reaches 696 Lamports Per Byte

Step 3 targets 2,575 lamports per byte, a 63% reduction from the original. Steps 4 and 5 bring the constant to 1,322 and then 696 lamports per byte, completing the 90% cut. None carries a calendar date; each activates only after developers confirm that the prior step produced no problematic growth in on-chain state.

The gate structure reflects the asymmetric risk built into the later cuts. SIMD-0437 notes that risk assessment must account for superlinear increases as reductions compound: a large cut applied on top of prior cuts drives proportionally more account creation than the same cut applied from a higher starting value. SIMD-0438 provides a reverse mechanism if state growth at any point exceeds what the risk analysis supports.